Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer
The Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer was the senior judge who presided over the Court of Exchequer. The Irish Exchequer was a mirror of the equivalent court in England and one of the four courts which sat in the building still called The Four Courts; the title Chief Baron was first used in 1309 for Walter de Islip. In the early centuries it was a political office, as late as 1442 the Lord Treasurer of Ireland thought it necessary to recommend that the Chief Baron should always be a properly trained lawyer; the last and greatest Chief Baron, The Rt Hon. Christopher Palles, continued to hold the title after the Court was merged into a new High Court of Justice in Ireland in 1878, until his retirement in 1916, when the office lapsed
Virtual International Authority File
The Virtual International Authority File is an international authority file. It is a joint project of several national libraries and operated by the Online Computer Library Center. Discussion about having a common international authority started in the late 1990s. After a series of failed attempts to come up with a unique common authority file, the new idea was to link existing national authorities; this would present all the benefits of a common file without requiring a large investment of time and expense in the process. The project was initiated by the US Library of Congress, the German National Library and the OCLC on August 6, 2003; the Bibliothèque nationale de France joined the project on October 5, 2007. The project transitioned to being a service of the OCLC on April 4, 2012; the aim is to link the national authority files to a single virtual authority file. In this file, identical records from the different data sets are linked together. A VIAF record receives a standard data number, contains the primary "see" and "see also" records from the original records, refers to the original authority records.
The data are available for research and data exchange and sharing. Reciprocal updating uses the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting protocol; the file numbers are being added to Wikipedia biographical articles and are incorporated into Wikidata. VIAF's clustering algorithm is run every month; as more data are added from participating libraries, clusters of authority records may coalesce or split, leading to some fluctuation in the VIAF identifier of certain authority records. Authority control Faceted Application of Subject Terminology Integrated Authority File International Standard Authority Data Number International Standard Name Identifier Wikipedia's authority control template for articles Official website VIAF at OCLC
James Hewitt, 1st Viscount Lifford
For the contemporary of Diana, Princess of Wales, see Major James Hewitt. For the early American musician and music publisher, see James Hewitt. James Hewitt, 1st Viscount Lifford, was judge, he served as Lord Chancellor of Ireland from 1767 to 1789. Hewitt was the son of a Coventry draper, William Hewitt, born in Rockcliffe, the son of James Hewitt and Mary Urwin; the judge's mother was Hannah Lewis. His brother, William Hewitt, was governor of the West Indies, a position he obtained through his brother's influence with the Government. In a class-conscious age, his background was something of a handicap, his "small-town" manners were the subject of unkind comment throughout his life. Hewitt first worked as an attorney's clerk. By 1742, he had become a barrister. Rising through the legal profession, his career climaxed when he was made Lord Chancellor of Ireland in 1767, a post he held until his death in 1789, he was raised to the Peerage of Ireland as Baron Lifford, of Lifford in the County of Donegal, in 1768, was further honoured when he was made Viscount Lifford in 1781 in the Irish peerage.
He was elected Member of Parliament for Coventry for 1761 to 1766. He was not regarded as a Parliamentarian: his fellow MPs complained that his speeches were inaudible. Lord Lifford made his reputation as Lord Chancellor of Ireland: he had until had the name of being a "dull, heavy lawyer", an uninspiring though "safe" MP, a man of mediocre intelligence, painfully conscious of his rather humble origins; the Government which chose him was rather doubtful that he had the necessary strength of character to be an effective Lord Chancellor, while the English Bench reacted to his appointment with general ridicule. They were proved wrong: within two years of his arrival in Ireland, Lord Lifford was earning the highest praises as a judge; as his colleague in the Irish Government John Hely-Hutchinson wrote to a friend- "He does his business ably and expeditiously and to the general satisfaction of suitors and practicers in this country, where he is much respected and a popular character and is, in his public and private deportment, a most worthy and amiable man".
His efficiency in doing business was such that it was said that all equity litigation in his time was diverted to Chancery. Barristers who practiced in his court, like John Philpot Curran, fondly recalled "the great Lord Lifford" after his death as a model for other judges to follow. Lord Lifford married firstly Mary Rhys Williams, daughter of the Rev. Rhys Williams, in c. 1749, by whom he had four sons, including James, his heir, Joseph Hewitt, justice of the Court of King's Bench. She died in 1765, his second wife was Ambrosia Bayley, daughter of the Rev. Charles Bayley, whom he married in 1766: her youth and beauty aroused much admiration in Ireland. By Ambrosia he had one further son and two daughters, he was succeeded by James Hewitt, 2nd Viscount Lifford. "HEWITT, James, of Alveston, Warws". History of Parliament Online. Retrieved 3 April 2013
London
London is the capital and largest city of both England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south-east of England, at the head of its 50-mile estuary leading to the North Sea, London has been a major settlement for two millennia. Londinium was founded by the Romans; the City of London, London's ancient core − an area of just 1.12 square miles and colloquially known as the Square Mile − retains boundaries that follow its medieval limits. The City of Westminster is an Inner London borough holding city status. Greater London is governed by the Mayor of the London Assembly. London is considered to be one of the world's most important global cities and has been termed the world's most powerful, most desirable, most influential, most visited, most expensive, sustainable, most investment friendly, most popular for work, the most vegetarian friendly city in the world. London exerts a considerable impact upon the arts, education, fashion, healthcare, professional services and development, tourism and transportation.
London ranks 26 out of 300 major cities for economic performance. It is one of the largest financial centres and has either the fifth or sixth largest metropolitan area GDP, it is the most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the busiest city airport system as measured by passenger traffic. It is the leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. London's universities form the largest concentration of higher education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted three modern Summer Olympic Games. London has a diverse range of people and cultures, more than 300 languages are spoken in the region, its estimated mid-2016 municipal population was 8,787,892, the most populous of any city in the European Union and accounting for 13.4% of the UK population. London's urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census.
The population within the London commuter belt is the most populous in the EU with 14,040,163 inhabitants in 2016. London was the world's most populous city from c. 1831 to 1925. London contains four World Heritage Sites: the Tower of London. Other landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Paul's Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square and The Shard. London has numerous museums, galleries and sporting events; these include the British Museum, National Gallery, Natural History Museum, Tate Modern, British Library and West End theatres. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world. "London" is an ancient name, attested in the first century AD in the Latinised form Londinium. Over the years, the name has attracted many mythicising explanations; the earliest attested appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, written around 1136. This had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had taken over the city and named it Kaerlud.
Modern scientific analyses of the name must account for the origins of the different forms found in early sources Latin, Old English, Welsh, with reference to the known developments over time of sounds in those different languages. It is agreed; this was adapted into Latin as Londinium and borrowed into Old English, the ancestor-language of English. The toponymy of the Common Brythonic form is much debated. A prominent explanation was Richard Coates's 1998 argument that the name derived from pre-Celtic Old European *lowonida, meaning "river too wide to ford". Coates suggested that this was a name given to the part of the River Thames which flows through London. However, most work has accepted a Celtic origin for the name, recent studies have favoured an explanation along the lines of a Celtic derivative of a proto-Indo-European root *lendh-, combined with the Celtic suffix *-injo- or *-onjo-. Peter Schrijver has suggested, on these grounds, that the name meant'place that floods'; until 1889, the name "London" applied to the City of London, but since it has referred to the County of London and Greater London.
"London" is sometimes written informally as "LDN". In 1993, the remains of a Bronze Age bridge were found on the south foreshore, upstream of Vauxhall Bridge; this bridge either reached a now lost island in it. Two of those timbers were radiocarbon dated to between 1750 BC and 1285 BC. In 2010 the foundations of a large timber structure, dated to between 4800 BC and 4500 BC, were found on the Thames's south foreshore, downstream of Vauxhall Bridge; the function of the mesolithic structure is not known. Both structures are on the south bank. Although there is evidence of scattered Brythonic settlements in the area, the first major settlement was founded by the Romans about four years after the invasion
George II of Great Britain
George II was King of Great Britain and Ireland, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire from 11 June 1727 until his death in 1760. George was the last British monarch born outside Great Britain: he was born and brought up in northern Germany, his grandmother, Sophia of Hanover, became second in line to the British throne after about 50 Catholics higher in line were excluded by the Act of Settlement 1701 and the Acts of Union 1707, which restricted the succession to Protestants. After the deaths of Sophia and Anne, Queen of Great Britain, in 1714, his father George I, Elector of Hanover, inherited the British throne. In the first years of his father's reign as king, George was associated with opposition politicians, until they rejoined the governing party in 1720; as king from 1727, George exercised little control over British domestic policy, controlled by the Parliament of Great Britain. As elector, he spent twelve summers in Hanover, where he had more direct control over government policy.
He had a difficult relationship with his eldest son, who supported the parliamentary opposition. During the War of the Austrian Succession, George participated at the Battle of Dettingen in 1743, thus became the last British monarch to lead an army in battle. In 1745, supporters of the Catholic claimant to the British throne, James Francis Edward Stuart, led by James's son Charles Edward Stuart and failed to depose George in the last of the Jacobite rebellions. Frederick died unexpectedly in 1751, nine years before his father, so George II was succeeded by his grandson, George III. For two centuries after George II's death, history tended to view him with disdain, concentrating on his mistresses, short temper, boorishness. Since most scholars have reassessed his legacy and conclude that he held and exercised influence in foreign policy and military appointments. George was born in the city of Hanover in Germany, was the son of George Louis, Hereditary Prince of Brunswick-Lüneburg, his wife, Sophia Dorothea of Celle.
His sister, Sophia Dorothea, was born. Both of George's parents committed adultery, in 1694 their marriage was dissolved on the pretext that Sophia had abandoned her husband, she was confined to Ahlden House and denied access to her two children, who never saw their mother again. George spoke only French, the language of diplomacy and the court, until the age of four, after which he was taught German by one of his tutors, Johann Hilmar Holstein. In addition to French and German, he was schooled in English and Italian, studied genealogy, military history, battle tactics with particular diligence. George's second cousin once removed, Queen Anne, ascended the thrones of England and Ireland in 1702, she had no surviving children, by the Act of Settlement 1701, the English Parliament designated Anne's closest Protestant blood relations, George's grandmother Sophia and her descendants, as Anne's heirs in England and Ireland. After his grandmother and father, George was third in line to succeed Anne in two of her three realms.
He was naturalized as an English subject in 1705 by the Sophia Naturalization Act, in 1706, he was made a Knight of the Garter and created Duke and Marquess of Cambridge, Earl of Milford Haven, Viscount Northallerton, Baron Tewkesbury in the Peerage of England. England and Scotland united in 1707 to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, jointly accepted the succession as laid down by the English Act of Settlement. George's father did not want his son to enter into a loveless arranged marriage as he had, wanted him to have the opportunity of meeting his bride before any formal arrangements were made. Negotiations from 1702 for the hand of Princess Hedvig Sophia of Sweden, Dowager Duchess and regent of Holstein-Gottorp, came to nothing. In June 1705, under the false name of "Monsieur de Busch", George visited the Ansbach court at their summer residence in Triesdorf to investigate incognito a marriage prospect: Caroline of Ansbach, the former ward of his aunt Queen Sophia Charlotte of Prussia; the English envoy to Hanover, Edmund Poley, reported that George was so taken by "the good character he had of her that he would not think of anybody else".
A marriage contract was concluded by the end of July. On 22 August / 2 September 1705O. S./N. S. Caroline arrived in Hanover for her wedding, held the same evening in the chapel at Herrenhausen. George was keen to participate in the war against France in Flanders, but his father refused permission for him to join the army in an active role until he had a son and heir. In early 1707, George's hopes were fulfilled. In July, Caroline fell ill with smallpox, George caught the infection after staying by her side devotedly during her illness, they both recovered. In 1708, George participated in the Battle of Oudenarde in the vanguard of the Hanoverian cavalry; the British commander, wrote that George "distinguished himself charging at the head of and animating by his example troops, who played a good part in this happy victory". Between 1709 and 1713, George and Caroline had three more children, all girls: Anne and Caroline. By 1714, Queen Anne's health had declined, British Whigs, politicians who supported the Hanoverian succession, thought it prudent for one of the Hanoverians to live in England, to safeguard
Henry Barry, 4th Baron Barry of Santry
Henry Barry, 4th Baron Barry of Santry referred to as Lord Santry, was an Irish peer. He is unique in being the only member of the Irish House of Lords to be convicted of murder by his peers, for which crime he was sentenced to death, he received a full pardon, but died when still a young man. He was born in Dublin on 3 September 1710, only son of Henry Barry, 3rd Baron Barry of Santry, Bridget Domvile, daughter of Sir Thomas Domvile, 1st Baronet, of Templeogue, his first wife and cousin Elizabeth Lake, daughter of Sir Lancelot Lake, he took his seat in the Irish House of Lords. He married firstly Anne Thornton, daughter of William Thornton of Finglas, who died in 1742, secondly in 1750 Elizabeth Shore of Derby, but had no issue by either marriage, he was buried at St. Nicholas' Church, Nottingham. Lord Barry of Santry seems to have been the typical eighteenth-century rake, with a quarrelsome and violent nature, he was a member of the notorious Dublin Hellfire Club: the Club's reputation never recovered from the sensational publicity surrounding his trial for murder, although there is no reason to think that his fellow members condoned the crime.
There were rumours that he had committed at least one previous murder, hushed up, although there seems to be no firm evidence for this. On 9 August 1738, Lord Santry was drinking with some friends at a tavern in Palmerstown, now a suburb but was a small village near Dublin city. Santry, who had drunk more than usual, attacked a Mr Humphries, but was unable to draw his sword. Enraged, he ran to the kitchen, where he chanced to meet Laughlin Murphy, the tavern porter, for no obvious reason ran him through with his sword, he bribed the innkeeper to help him escape. Murphy was taken to Dublin. Although Lord Santry was not apprehended, there is no reason to think that the Crown intended that he should escape justice. In an age when the aristocracy enjoyed special privileges, the murder of Murphy, who by all accounts was an honest and hardworking man with a wife and young family to support, had shocked public opinion, whereas Lord Santry was regarded in Government circles, as a public nuisance. In due course Santry was indicted for murder.
He demanded, as the privilege of a trial by his peers. The trial, which took place in the Irish Houses of Parliament on 27 April 1739, aroused immense public interest. Lord Wyndham, the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, presided in his other role as Lord High Steward of Ireland, with 23 peers sitting as judges; the Attorney-General for Ireland, Robert Jocelyn, the Solicitor-General for Ireland, John Bowes, led for the prosecution. Bowes dominated his speeches made his reputation as an orator. Thomas Rundle, Bishop of Derry, who as a spiritual peer was only an observer at the trial, said "I never heard, never read, so perfect a piece of eloquence...the strength and light of his reason, the fairness and candour". The Bishop was scathing about counsel for the defence, describing the performance of Santry's counsel as "detestable"; the defence case was that Murphy had died not from his wound but from a long-standing illness, but in view of the medical evidence produced by the prosecution this was a hopeless argument.
According to Bishop Rundle, Santry's counsel failed to mention the possibility that Murphy, who lingered for 6 weeks after being stabbed, might have died through inadequate medical care. Given the overwhelming evidence of Lord Santry's guilt, any defence was useless, despite what was described as their "looks of horror", his peers had little difficulty in finding Santry guilty. Wyndham, who had conducted the trial with exemplary fairness, pronounced the death sentence. King George II, like all British monarchs, had the prerogative of mercy, a campaign was launched by Santry's friends and relatives to persuade the King to grant a pardon, their plea seems to have concentrated on the victim's low social standing, the implication being that the life of a peer was worth more than that of a tavern worker, despite the victim's blameless character and the savage and wanton nature of the murder. The King proved reluctant to grant a pardon, for a time it seemed that Santry would die, but in due course a reprieve was issued.
Popular legend had it that his uncle Sir Compton Domvile, through whose estate at Templeogue the River Dodder flowed, secured a royal pardon for his nephew by threatening to divert the course of the river, thus depriving the citizens of Dublin of their main supply of drinking water. On 17 June 1740, Lord Santry received a full royal pardon and the restoration of his title and estates, his last years are said to have been wretched: although he made a second marriage shortly before his death, he was abandoned by all his former friends, was in pain from gout and prone to depression. On his death in 1751 the title became extinct, his widow Elizabeth outlived him by many years, dying in December 1816. In 1628 Lord Dunboyne was acquitted. In 1743 The 5th Viscount Netterville was acquitted of murder by his peers, as was Robert King, 2nd Earl of Kingston in 1798
